Description
Epigenetic activation or inactivation of genes plays a critical role in many important human diseases, especially in cancer. A major mechanism for epigenetic inactivation of the genes is methylation of CpG islands in genome DNA caused by DNA methyltransferases. Histone methyltransferases (HMTs) control or regulate DNA methylation through chromatin-dependent transcription repression or activation. HMTs transfer 1-3 methyl groups from S-adenosyl-L-methionine to the lysine and arginine residues of histone proteins. SET1, SET7/9, Ash1, ALL-1, MLL, ALR, Trx, and SMYD3 are histone methyltransferases that catalyze methylation of histone H3 at lysine 4 (H3-K4) in mammalian cells. H3-K4 monomethylation is associated with silenced euchromatin regions in the genome and may serve as a epigenetic mark and function in gene repression. In contrast, di- and tri-methylation is associated with transcriptionally active euchromatin regions in the genome and may serve as a epigenetic mark of highly transcribed genes. Increased H3-K4 methylation is also found to be involved in some pathological processes such as cancer progression. The patterns of H3-K4 methylation can be also changed by inhibition or activation of HMTs. Thus quantitative detection of the patterns of histone H3-K4 methylation would provide useful information for better understading epigenetic regulation of gene activation and for developing HMT-targeted drugs. The Pan-Methyl Histone H3-K4 Quantification Kit (Colorimetric) provides a tool for measuring mono-, di- and tri-methylation of histone H3-K4